


Eye of the Beholder

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, I am sure it has been observed by folks wittier than I but tagging porn is a fucking adventure, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mirror Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, brief flashback blowjobs, like. a little? I think?, local fluff peddler goes rogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 02:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11347971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: “Open your eyes for me, love,” Thomas reminds him, voice husky, and when he does, the first thing he sees is Thomas's reflected grin, hungry as the gaze that caresses every inch of skin from James's parted, panting lips down to his flushed and leaking cock. “Justlookat you,” he sighs in James's ear before he trails imprecise, open-mouthed kisses back down to James's throat.~~~alternatively, that time bean was like "so what if they fucked in front of a mirror" and I was like "shit what if they DID"





	Eye of the Beholder

“James,” murmurs Thomas against James's neck, one of the hands gripping his waist skimming upwards, feather-light along his ribs. “ _Look_.”

He curls two fingers under James's chin, tilts his gaze up, giving James no choice in the matter. In the old mirror leaning against the headboard, he _sees_ himself – on his knees, Thomas behind him, propping him up, his hair falling damp and wild about his shoulders, flushed chest heaving, cock straining towards his stomach, little beads of sweat sliding across the hollows of hips that rock blindly, weakly back, because Thomas won't fucking _move._

“ _Thomas_ ,” he rasps, fingers digging into Thomas's thighs, “please, just – ”

“No,” Thomas smirks, lips curving slow and mischievous at James's throat. His eyes cut to James's in the mirror, piercing easily through the tarnished patches and the heavy, heady haze. “Not yet.”

James grits his teeth, grinds back harder – it's still not enough to do any more than frustrate, not with Thomas refusing to  _cooperate_. “Any _reason_?” he spits, tossing his head over his shoulder, trying to force Thomas to meet his eye properly.

To James's increased irritation, Thomas only cups his jaw and turns him back around, holding him there. “I told you. I want you to _look_.” The corners of his mouth are a touch amused, which, all told, pisses James off – here he is, hard and aching and squirming and desperate, and there _Thomas_ is, smiling pleasantly, apparently quite content to keep him that way. “I've noticed, you know, how you like to draw the curtains, blow the candles out. How you shy away from me when I tell you how _beautiful_ you are.” Those last few words he purrs in James's ear, and when James's breath catches, it has little to do with Thomas's teeth tugging at his earlobe. “How your cheeks burn and your eyes snap away when I take you in my hand, go to my knees for you, when I _have_ you, just like this – ”

Thomas pushes deeper into him at last, one slow and dragging slide, and James gasps, quivers, can't look away from the rush of color to his face. “I – I don't – God, _Thomas_.”

Thomas nods towards the mirror, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “I didn't bring this in here because I fancied playing the voyeur. I want _you_ to watch, to see yourself as I do, because what _I_ see,” Thomas croons, “is oh, so lovely. Beauty ought to be shared, wouldn't you agree?” he asks, his light, even tone entirely at odds with the wicked trickery of the quick jerk of his hips.

James groans like a storm-rolled ship, bears down as best he can on Thomas's shallow, pulsing thrusts, the tease just enough to take the edge off, quicken his breath to panting and turn his eyes to clouded glass. He shifts his weight, Thomas slips a hint farther inside, and the burn breaks into low, warm bliss. Thomas's mouth roams hot and wet over James's hammering pulse as his thumb massages circles into the dip of James's hipbones, and James doesn't realize his eyes have drifted shut until Thomas nips at his ear again and the barbed jolt of pleasure throws them open.

“Open your eyes for me, love,” Thomas reminds him, voice husky, and when he does, the first thing he sees is Thomas's reflected grin, hungry as the gaze that caresses every inch of skin from James's parted, panting lips down to his flushed and leaking cock. “Just _look_ at you,” he sighs in James's ear before he trails imprecise, open-mouthed kisses back down to James's throat. One last squeeze to James's hip, then Thomas lets go, his touch ghosting over the side of James's waist, leaving shivers in its wake.

Up James's body he traces until his hand is level with his own mouth. Eyes boring mercilessly into James's through the mirror, Thomas licks a slow, wet band across his palm, and as he reaches downwards, James pulls his bottom lip between his teeth in anticipation – and then Thomas _stops_ , the curve of his hand _just_ loose enough to avoid James's frustrated, searching shifting. “If you turn away,” he warns, letting his fingertips graze James's shaft, “you do yourself no favors. Do you understand?” And no, James _doesn't_ understand why Thomas is so – so _keen_ on this, but God, he would agree to _anything_ to get Thomas to hurry up and _touch_ him. He nods, and Thomas smiles. “Good,” he hums, and closes his hand around James's cock at last.

A few light tugs send liquid gold trickling through James's veins, and already, he fights not to cast his eye down. He's never seen himself this _open_ before, doesn't know what to think of it. Before Thomas, the only thought he ever paid the _look_ of such acts came while kneeling in the dark belowdecks. With his lips slick and stretched around some shipmate or another's cock, he'd think of how best to hide the painful, shameful reality of his own arousal before he could sneak off and scramble to think of skirts as he spilled into his own hand. Before Thomas, no one called him _beautiful_ , and he would have decked anyone who tried. He _knew_ this draw, this drive, this lust, was profane, and that the only way to function under its rule was to get it over quickly, deem it a matter of necessity, pretend that he doesn't fucking _love_ it.

But now, stripped bare and spread out on their private little display, his body betrays him utterly. Soft grunts he can't bite back _ahh_ and _uh_ and _ohh_ from his throat, his skin shines with sweat and beats hot with blood all over – and that's where Thomas _doesn't_ touch him. His cock drips, glossy drops of wetness smearing beneath Thomas's lazily pumping hand. Thomas Hamilton will be the very death of him, James has no doubt. Not only does he make it impossible to hide the rushing swell of need, of _want_ building inside him, he denies him its release just as long as he _possibly_ can. Maddening, it's maddening, _almost_ enough pressure on his cock to spark the embers lit by the steady rolling of Thomas's hips, _almost_ enough to lose himself in, but – “More,” James breathes, urgent, wrecked, “I need _more_.”

Thomas seems not to hear him, doesn't miss a beat of his torturous rhythm. James nearly repeats himself in aggravation before Thomas laps his tongue under James's jaw and murmurs, “Beautiful, isn't it? This dance of ours?”

Too much cool weight to the words, hooded gaze too sharp in the mirror – James _knows_ Thomas. This is not how he wears the heat of the moment. He recognizes the tone as the one Thomas slips on like armor when he digs his heels into the dirt during a debate to insist that a point receive its due – _don't dismiss me out of hand, don't nod along to humor me,_ think _about it until you understand_. He never budges until the toll is paid, so James knows better than to try anything but pretend he's less doubtful than his reflection and _look_.

He starts at his hands, braced on Thomas's thighs. James doesn't recall moving them, but the overlapping sets of little crescents bitten into Thomas's skin and the bunched-up peaks scattered across the nearby sheets tell him that passion may be as blind as love. The fullness of Thomas's cock inside him sends waves of want rippling through his core; he's snagged right on the edge of a greater rapture, and the taut muscles of his stomach twitch with it, try to twist him closer to that blissful free fall. Thomas enflames James to the point of _shaking_ , and Thomas's eyes, shining dark beneath the hair plastered to his brow, whisper that he _knows_ it. Vulnerable, mewling, exposed and trembling and raw – Thomas finds this beautiful, or so he says.

Thomas quirks an eyebrow – _well?_ – and James could almost laugh, had he the breath to spare. “It could be,” he grits out, “if you quit fucking around and _fucked_ me properly.”

That, to James's smug delight, surprises Thomas, the next upstroke breaks the pattern, catches, squeezes a hint tighter. He tucks a smile into James's neck. “And here I thought navy training dealt in discipline and patience,” he muses, and in what could be either a small revenge or a smaller acquiescence, snaps his hips forwards.

For a moment, that pleasant, intoxicating stretch melts white-hot into something else entirely, and James bites back a groan, fights to steady his voice. “I should think it rather apparent, my lord, that I am off duty at the moment,” he quips on a strained exhale – he pushes back, Thomas slams into him, the lightning strikes again and James cannot stop the low moan from tumbling past his lips, nor the whining keen as Thomas leaves him nearly empty. His hair falls in a curtain over his face as his head lolls forwards, heavy, and Thomas sweeps it over his shoulder, guides James to lean back against him, rest his temple on his cheek – _Christ_ , he still hasn't given up on James _watching_ , has he? – and buries himself to the hilt and twists his hand over the head of James's cock all at once.

James could drown in the pleasure cresting over him, through him, stopping his breath. He's helpless, lost between sinking back and splitting himself open on Thomas's cock, and bucking into the tight friction of Thomas's hand, grinding off into his palm, already so wet with his own arousal. Thomas drives into him and James surges in tandem, clenches around the thick weight of him, wanting to be _filled_ , Thomas pumps his cock harder, and James's eyelids flutter on every building stroke. Every instinct James possesses warns him to duck his head, screw his eyes shut, not _think_ about it, just rut blindly into the sweet burn until he gets off – but in the mirror, Thomas's ravenous eyes rake over his reflection like fingernails along his back, and the need to hide...shrinks, somehow, disappears into the dark without him, and James, too far gone to hesitate, dedicates his last shred of coherent thought to giving Thomas something more to stare at.

Almost languorously, James stretches his arm up and tangles his fingers in the hair at the nape of Thomas's neck, gripping harder when he circles his hips, takes his time, moans long and low and deep as he tilts his head back, baring the smooth column of his throat. Thomas swallows once, shaky, thrusts slow, and James rides it out just like that, spread open and pliant, whole body rising and falling with the intensity of it. “ _Beautiful,_ ” Thomas sighs with all the desperate relief of a prayer, and the sound throws oil over the flames licking across James's skin. James drops his head to his shoulder, practically begging, and Thomas falls on the bait in an instant, sinking his teeth into the softness at the base of his neck and sucking, hard. The rosebud mark stings thorny-sweet as it blooms beneath Thomas's lips, and James whines with it, suddenly starving for that mouth on his own.

He pulls Thomas's head back and turns over his shoulder, and at that angle, the kiss is sloppy, nothing but a haphazard fumble of lips and scrape of teeth, but Thomas licks into it anyway, breath catching on the needy little gasps he huffs into James's mouth. Thomas holds nothing back now, hand a wicked blur over James's cock, narrowing his world to that warm groundswell that arcs his back and shakes his thighs – close, he's _so_ close – his whimpering breaks on every push of Thomas's cock inside him, Thomas's thumb slides over his slit once, again, then he returns to fisting his cock in quick tight strokes. James shudders, his voice seizes up, but Thomas can't _stop_ talking, whispers a litany of _just like that_ and _you're perfect_ and _come on, love, come on_ between slapdash kisses.

One last clever twist of Thomas's hand and James bucks, jerks, cries out. A pointed yank to his hair tears James's gaze from Thomas's still-sharp eyes, but by the time he faces the mirror again, it's too late, the roar of the sea in his blood darkens his vision, fades away everything besides how fucking _good_ it feels to _let go_ –

When again he opens his eyes he sees Thomas carefully stroking his still weakly-pulsing cock, fingers streaked white. A few drops landed on the mirror, and Thomas gingerly reaches out and wipes them up, leaving smeared fingerprints on the glass. He traces his fingertips along the seam of James's mouth and James opens for him, licks him clean, then, exhaustion finally catching up to him, he slumps forwards, boneless and warm. Thomas catches him around the middle and lowers him down gently, so he lands braced on his forearms and knees, forehead pressed into the sheets. Thomas follows him down, crowds around him, works in him in long, deep strokes, panting ragged in his ear. That damned composure unravels at last and his hips snap quicker, more frantic, and when James's knees slip back with it, he surrenders a low moan.

“You,” Thomas chokes out, rhythm stuttering, “are _exquisite_ , just _gorgeous_ , just – _ohh_ _h_.” He buries himself inside James one last time, hides his face in the crook of James's neck, spills hot until he's spent. The air cools, quiets. A handful of amber-trapped moments filter by, the sheets damp on James's front, Thomas heavy on his back, both of their chests rising and falling as their breath escapes in puffs, then Thomas plants a drowsy kiss to the damp hair at James's temple and rolls off and away, long limbs lying aslant across the middle of the bed. After a brief reeducation of his muscles, James follows, and finds Thomas's arms already open for him. He fits just as well as always, if Thomas's contented sigh is anything to go by.

When James realizes Thomas's ankles are hanging over the side, he decides to move them so they're lying in a more sensible position, but then catches sight of that mirror propped against the headboard, most thoroughly in the way. “I feel compelled to mention, my lord,” he remarks, regarding their reflection, “that there are two men already lying where our heads ought to be.”

“Really?” Thomas asks, not missing a beat, though he's already stifled a yawn. “And what do they look like?”

And oh, what a question. _We look a mess,_ James thinks, eyeing the slow-drying, wild-haired, hot-skinned evidence of their debauchery. _We look exposed, laid bare, and dangerous._ The kisses Thomas peppers across the back of his neck and shoulders are gentle and many. _But you, you look lovely_ , James thinks, though he can only just glimpse Thomas's face behind his own. He finds Thomas's hand on his waist and holds it. “I daresay they look rather happy.”

“Mm, that's a shame,” Thomas hums, twining and hooking his legs over James's, solving the ankle problem on his own. “Then we can hardly ask them to move.”

“Just as well,” says James, and he knocks his toes against the back of Thomas's calf. “The taller one looks like a stubborn bastard, probably wouldn't budge if asked, anyway.”

Thomas's laugh huffs warm against James's skin. “I do so love you.”

“You might as well, since I'm sharing your bed,” James replies airily, but it feels too dishonest, even in jest, so although it is still hard to say – but not hard to mean – he adds, “and because I love you, too.”

Thomas kisses the back of James's neck again, noses lightly at his nape. He squeezes James's hand before letting go and reaching back to untuck the corner of the nearest blanket from underneath the mattress, and wraps it upside-down over them both. The mirror shows only the shadow of a smile, their bundled, fabric-softened silhouettes. James turns his back on the faint image in favor of tucking his face against Thomas's warm chest, and it does not feel like hiding.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dear diary, today I went from "I have never discussed dicks in any of my work, ever, and probably won't" to "this PWP is the longest thing I've written for the ship by a non-negligible margin." I blame [this one.](http://bean-about-townn.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Crossposted to [tumblr](https://brightbluedot.tumblr.com/post/162405084839/eye-of-the-beholder). Come talk to me about Thomas Hamilton personally eradicating James McGraw's shame issues one book and/or sweet nothing and/or fuck at a time anytime you like. (Also, if you click that link, there is ART by [THIS](http://thomas-hamilton.tumblr.com/) lovely person!)
> 
> Comments are love!


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